4 ms·

> The SATs, particularly the mathematics score, is very much a reflection of your parents' willingness to push you academically. I scored very high in both. Be

> The SATs, particularly the mathematics score, is very much a reflection of your parents' willingness to push you academically. I scored very high in both. Believe me, as new immigrants we were completely clueless about the heated race to top spots. In my case, credits goes to my makers (mom and dad :) and the fact that Iran had fairly good public schools. Culture is important. Two relevant shockers for me (as a very young new arrival to US): - disrespect for teachers. - practically institutionalized disdain for the smart kids. I am talking cultural products here. So I honestly think cultural backgrounds that feature things like special social and personal regard for those who teach, and special regard for individuals in STEM professions (for example "mr. engineer"), are more at play here than merely ambitious parents. And guess what is driving those ambitious parents? Culture has a lot to do with it.

commandlinefan 4y ago
> disrespect for teachers ... disdain for the smart kids I've gotten the impression from every high-achieving-country immigrant that I've ever talked to that schools in those countries just kick out the troublemaking kids before they have a chance to disrupt the environment for everybody else. Nobody gets kicked out of US public schools, for any reason - so the kids who don't want to be there and spend all of their time trying to ruin it for everybody else are always there.
- e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
  That's very much true. I remember very clearly that when I was a new 1st grade student in a poor southeast asian country that the kid that yelled back at my teacher in my 60-person class didn't come back next week, whereas I suspect the same would not fly in US public schools. The things I've read (threatening violence, etc) would've never happened in my home country's schools, and if it did would've led to corporal punishment (caning was regularly practiced) and expulsion, not necessarily in that order, and very quickly at that. My impression is also that the academic culture is very different - even in my poorly funded primary school full of poor kids, there was a sense of academic accomplishment being of the highest importance -- all the students knew the importance of good grades, and students that disagree were socially shunned. Smart kids were the popular kids, and the people who ranked the top 10% got into a special class and were widely admired.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  This is how it should be here too. Inequality is accepted in so many other places in the USA, in ways that are far worse than this. The anti-intellectualism is a very, very real thing in the USA. In not good schools, you WILL be bullied for being cerebral. At this point, no amount of understanding of "oh the bad kids grew up in poverty and had social/economic reasons for being bad" is going to fix these kids up. You want to disrupt education for the rest? Teachers will disrupt the rest of your earning potential. Seems like a fair trade too, since the criminals are all getting laid and the MIT kids are all staying virgins. It takes 15 years to mint another "elite" educated individual. Just a few bad apples can destroy all of this work of trying to get someone to the MIT level. Get the bad apples out.
macNchz 4y ago
> practically institutionalized disdain for the smart kids. I am talking cultural products here Escaping this is certainly a piece of why people pursue "good" schools in wealthy areas, gifted programs, and private schools. Obviously it's not a guarantee you can avoid this attitude, but there are obvious differences between educational environments. I went to a good public school K-8, where I was part of the gifted program (what amounted to a handful of students in my year who had a few special class session per week), and then a top private high school. One of the biggest differences from a typical American public school that I saw in the gifted program and private school was that being smart/curious/interested/engaged/academically ambitious was generally admired and encouraged. I was endlessly curious but never a particular diligent student, and had a tendency to "coast" in school, but I think being in this environment helped frame things for me in a really positive way. It got a bit ridiculous at the end of high school as my classmates started aggressively competing for limited slots at top universities, but I feel the environment–being among people who valued ambition and using your brain–was super motivating and raised my internal bar for success in general. I'm reminded of something a tennis coach told me as I was first learning to play: the best way to improve your own game is to play with others more skilled than you.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
coryrc 4y ago
> Culture has a lot to do with it. If you admit this, you'd be saying one culture is worse and needs to change. One party in the US is against saying anyone but white men (and Karen) can do anything wrong, so the problem is everyone else. But it obviously isn't, some groups have cultures which denigrate learning and the consequence is those groups do not succeed academically or economically. All of the USA has at least some cultural issues (drunk driving is popular, for example). So who could we really trust to drive cultural change? Current teachers seem to be reinforcing victim mindset in children, the entire educational system is setup to keep kids away from people doing better than them -- grade separation alone, for example, prevents kids from learning from peers who already understand the material. The churches are corrupt and fractionated. Who would have the moral authority to drive cultural change for the better?
- eternalban 4y ago
  No so broad a notion of 'culture', mainly cultural 'content'. This can be, and it is tweaked (worldwide), as needed. Cinema/TV in US has always been a leading indicator of societal change, rarely a lagging indicator. So it has always been, in a sense, understood and used as a pedagogical platform. They actually tried this in US starting in late 80s and 90s, when we got a slate of 'geeks who get babes, and social acceptance' movies - War Games, Real Genius, Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, Hackers, etc. [p.s. didn't finish that thought! /g] But imho this was the wrong set of adjustments. The inducements - sex, money, and social acceptance -- are certainly attractive, but any kid with half a brain can note that there are far easier and certainly more exciting ways than learning -- culturally celebrated ways, yo -- to get that very same set of inducements. It did however get us to the geek hero celebrity stage, with Jobs and now Musk. [edits]

commandlinefan 4y ago

> disrespect for teachers ... disdain for the smart kids I've gotten the impression from every high-achieving-country immigrant that I've ever talked to that schools in those countries just kick out the troublemaking kids before they have a chance to disrupt the environment for everybody else. Nobody gets kicked out of US public schools, for any reason - so the kids who don't want to be there and spend all of their time trying to ruin it for everybody else are always there.

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
That's very much true. I remember very clearly that when I was a new 1st grade student in a poor southeast asian country that the kid that yelled back at my teacher in my 60-person class didn't come back next week, whereas I suspect the same would not fly in US public schools. The things I've read (threatening violence, etc) would've never happened in my home country's schools, and if it did would've led to corporal punishment (caning was regularly practiced) and expulsion, not necessarily in that order, and very quickly at that. My impression is also that the academic culture is very different - even in my poorly funded primary school full of poor kids, there was a sense of academic accomplishment being of the highest importance -- all the students knew the importance of good grades, and students that disagree were socially shunned. Smart kids were the popular kids, and the people who ranked the top 10% got into a special class and were widely admired.
Der_Einzige 4y ago
This is how it should be here too. Inequality is accepted in so many other places in the USA, in ways that are far worse than this. The anti-intellectualism is a very, very real thing in the USA. In not good schools, you WILL be bullied for being cerebral. At this point, no amount of understanding of "oh the bad kids grew up in poverty and had social/economic reasons for being bad" is going to fix these kids up. You want to disrupt education for the rest? Teachers will disrupt the rest of your earning potential. Seems like a fair trade too, since the criminals are all getting laid and the MIT kids are all staying virgins. It takes 15 years to mint another "elite" educated individual. Just a few bad apples can destroy all of this work of trying to get someone to the MIT level. Get the bad apples out.

macNchz 4y ago

> practically institutionalized disdain for the smart kids. I am talking cultural products here Escaping this is certainly a piece of why people pursue "good" schools in wealthy areas, gifted programs, and private schools. Obviously it's not a guarantee you can avoid this attitude, but there are obvious differences between educational environments. I went to a good public school K-8, where I was part of the gifted program (what amounted to a handful of students in my year who had a few special class session per week), and then a top private high school. One of the biggest differences from a typical American public school that I saw in the gifted program and private school was that being smart/curious/interested/engaged/academically ambitious was generally admired and encouraged. I was endlessly curious but never a particular diligent student, and had a tendency to "coast" in school, but I think being in this environment helped frame things for me in a really positive way. It got a bit ridiculous at the end of high school as my classmates started aggressively competing for limited slots at top universities, but I feel the environment–being among people who valued ambition and using your brain–was super motivating and raised my internal bar for success in general. I'm reminded of something a tennis coach told me as I was first learning to play: the best way to improve your own game is to play with others more skilled than you.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

coryrc 4y ago

> Culture has a lot to do with it. If you admit this, you'd be saying one culture is worse and needs to change. One party in the US is against saying anyone but white men (and Karen) can do anything wrong, so the problem is everyone else. But it obviously isn't, some groups have cultures which denigrate learning and the consequence is those groups do not succeed academically or economically. All of the USA has at least some cultural issues (drunk driving is popular, for example). So who could we really trust to drive cultural change? Current teachers seem to be reinforcing victim mindset in children, the entire educational system is setup to keep kids away from people doing better than them -- grade separation alone, for example, prevents kids from learning from peers who already understand the material. The churches are corrupt and fractionated. Who would have the moral authority to drive cultural change for the better?

eternalban 4y ago
No so broad a notion of 'culture', mainly cultural 'content'. This can be, and it is tweaked (worldwide), as needed. Cinema/TV in US has always been a leading indicator of societal change, rarely a lagging indicator. So it has always been, in a sense, understood and used as a pedagogical platform. They actually tried this in US starting in late 80s and 90s, when we got a slate of 'geeks who get babes, and social acceptance' movies - War Games, Real Genius, Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, Hackers, etc. [p.s. didn't finish that thought! /g] But imho this was the wrong set of adjustments. The inducements - sex, money, and social acceptance -- are certainly attractive, but any kid with half a brain can note that there are far easier and certainly more exciting ways than learning -- culturally celebrated ways, yo -- to get that very same set of inducements. It did however get us to the geek hero celebrity stage, with Jobs and now Musk. [edits]